Our Lady of the Atonement, which was the first Anglican Use Catholic parish in the United States, will be the site of the 2008 Anglican Use Conference on July 10-12. Patsy Pelton | Today’s Catholic

For more information on the upcoming conference, visit www.anglicanuseconference.com. To learn more about the Anglican Use Society, visit www.anglicanuse.org. For information regarding Our Lady of the Atonement, visit their Web site at www.atonementonline.com.

SAN ANTONIO • History has been slowly reversing itself with the return to the Catholic Church fold of a segment of the Episcopal Church, whose roots hark back to the Anglican Church of Henry VIII. A national conference to discuss and celebrate the 25th anniversary of this expanding union will take place here July 10-12, when the national Anglican Use Conference will be held at Our Lady of the Atonement Parish.

Theme of the conference is “The First 25 years of the Anglican Usage of the Roman Rite: Unity in Diversity in the Catholic Church.” The event also marks the 25th anniversary of Our Lady of the Atonement’s establishment as an Anglican Use Catholic parish.

Creation of Anglican Use parishes came about under John Paul II who, in 1980, asked the bishops of the United States to develop terms under which former Episcopal clergymen and laity could be admitted into full communion with the Catholic Church.

Locally, in 1983 Father Christopher G. Phillips, who had previously been an Episcopal priest, was ordained by Archbishop Patrick F. Flores as pastor for Our Lady of the Atonement Parish, composed of 18 former Episcopalians who had converted.

Under the Pastoral Provision to the Anglican Usage of the Roman Rite (commonly referred to as the Pastoral Provision), Father Phillips was allowed to enter the Catholic priesthood already married and with a family, as have a number of other former Episcopal priests over the years. (This provision is made only for Episcopal priests already married when seeking to convert and be ordained as Catholic priests.)

Our Lady of the Atonement was the first such “personal parish” established in the United States for the Anglican Use liturgy. Currently, there are six Anglican Use parishes in the United States, with the majority located in Texas.

They are St. Mary the Virgin in Arlington, Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, St. Anselm of Canterbury Catholic Mission in Corpus Christi, The Congregation of St. Athanasius in Boston, St. Thomas More Society in Scranton, Pa., and Our Lady of the Atonement here in San Antonio.

Members of these parishes are under the authority of the pope and are fully a part of the Catholic Church, but have been granted permission to use elements of their Anglican liturgical heritage.

Joseph Blake, president and a founder of the Scranton-based Anglican Use Society, will be among those participating in the San Antonio conference. The society was formed in 2003 to help promote the Pastoral Provision by assisting Episcopal clergy and congregations who wished to join the Catholic Church, bringing with them elements of the Anglican liturgical tradition.

Blake is quick to point out that Anglican Use is not a separate rite (such as the Ukrainian Church), as the term rite can only be affixed to churches which trace their existence to one of the apostles.

He noted the beginnings of the Anglican Use movement were sparked in the 1970s, when the Episcopal Church General Convention approved the ordination of women. A segment of the Episcopal Church had been moving towards establishing union with the Roman Catholic Church, but this break with tradition dashed those hopes.
“That really led to the beginning of a division within the Episcopal Church,” said Blake, “because many congregations and dioceses did not go along with the idea of women’s ordination.”

Two different movements occurred around this time, he noted. “There was a break away of a number of Episcopal churches that are sometimes referred to as the Continuing Church,” he said. These considered themselves Anglican, rather than Episcopalian, and he noted there are around 500,000 persons around the world who fall in this category. They have, in recent times, approached Rome with discussion of union, but have not progressed beyond this.

At the same time, in 1976, high clergy affected by the change in direction of the Episcopal Church away from tradition, initiated talk with the pope about how they might enter the Catholic Church, leading to the establishment by Pope John Paul II of the Pastoral Provision and subsequent establishment of Anglican Use parishes.

The liturgical traditions of such parishes or congregations follow what is called the Book of Divine Worship, which contains a form of the Mass using elements from the Book of Common Prayer, including the General Confession and the Prayer of Humble Access. An older canon is used and there are two rites, one in traditional English and one in contemporary English.

Also unique to Anglican Use parishes are the Rite for Baptism, the Rite for Marriage, the Order for Burial of the Dead, the Order for Morning Prayer, the Order for Evening Prayer and the Great Litany.

A former Episcopalian, Blake had grown uncomfortable with changes taking place in the Episcopal Church, leading to his conversion to Catholicism. “I didn’t like the position of the Episcopal Church on abortion, which was just too whimsical,” he related. “And actually I didn’t like the ease with which people were sort of throwing over traditions. It just seemed to me that it had no direction. So that,” he added, “is why I am a Catholic.”

He had known about the Anglican Use for some time when, while living in Boston for a year, he began attending such a church. “And it reminded me of many other things that I loved about the Anglican liturgy,” he said, “its dignity and reverence and the like.” He noted that many Anglican Use adherents are persons who prefer a more traditional, dignified liturgy than is found in many Catholic parishes since Vatican II.

Blake was personally responsible for facilitating the move of the rector of an Episcopal Church in Scranton, Penn., into the Catholic Church. “I knew he was not happy with the liberal direction of the Episcopal Church,” noted Blake, who encouraged him to look into the Anglican Use. That minister who, like Father Phillips, was married and with children, eventually was ordained as a Catholic priest.

Other issues that have caused Episcopalians to gravitate to the Catholic Church have been approval by the Episcopal Church, in recent years, of same sex marriages and the ordination of homosexuals.

The July 10-12 Anglican Use Conference here, Blake noted, will have a larger attendance than the approximately 100 these annual conferences typically draw.

While attendees are primarily those already in Anglican Use parishes, there will, as always, be what he termed “inquirers” present who, as he once was, are seeking an authentic church.

Speakers at the conference will include Archbishop John Myers of Newark, N.J. (the Ecclesial Delegate for the Pastoral Provision in the United States), Jeffrey N. Steenson (the former Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of the Rio Grande, based in Albuquerque, N.M., who recently converted to Catholicism), Father Allan Hawkins (former Episcopalian minister and now pastor of St. Mary the Virgin Catholic Church in Arlington, a former Episcopalian congregation which converted in its entirety to Catholicism), Father Eric Bergman, chaplain for the St. Thomas More Society in Scranton, Pa., and Father Christopher G. Phillips of Our Lady of the Atonement.